England captain Michael Vaughan wants his side to pick up from where they ended in New Zealand when they face the Black Caps again in the first Test at Lord's, starting here on Thursday.

In March, England completed a come from behind 2-1 Test series victory in New Zealand with a 121-run victory and for the opening match of this campaign have stuck with the same team that triumphed in Napier.

Vaughan himself has already started to talk about next year's Ashes campaign, still the premier Test series as far as England players are concerned, but he insisted on Wednesday he was focused on the task at hand.

"We all know what's out there for us but we just want to try to continue where we left off in New Zealand," Vaughan told reporters at Lord's.

"New Zealand have got explosive players, they have a powerful middle order and if they bat for long periods of time they will certainly score quickly.

"That is an area that we have to look out for and their bowling unit is very disciplined. We all know how they're going to bowl and where they're going to bowl," he added.

"They are very disciplined and a good fielding unit, but they will probably say they lack a bit of experience at the top of the order and that's an area we'll try to expose if we can."

New Zealand opener Aaron Redmond is set to make his Test debut at Lord's after scoring 146 and 64 against England Lions, the national 2nd XI, at the Rose Bowl last week.

Middle-order batsman Daniel Flynn is also set to make his Test debut on Thursday. But, unlike Redmond, he has been struggling for form with 65 runs in five innings.

Vaughan too comes into this match on the back of a run of low scores after failing to score a fifty in seven innings for Yorkshire since his return from New Zealand.

Now he intends to swop places with Andrew Strauss and drop down from opening to No 3 in the order, even though there are concerns that the Middlesex batsman and fellow left-hander Alastair Cook are too similar in style to form an effective first-wicket partnership.

"Strauss batted at three in New Zealand and he wants to open and I opened in New Zealand and prefer to bat at three so it's pretty straightforward," Vaughan explained.

"I didn't play as well as I could, certainly in that last game in Napier but I look back at the last 12 months and I've probably only had two bad games - the last game in Sri Lanka and the last game in New Zealand."

He added: "I've got to play some more consistent cricket and get more consistent scores and batting at number three I believe will help me do that.

"I've always preferred batting at three as a captain. My record at three is quite good, certainly last summer when I came back I scored a lot of runs and I'm very confident I can do the same again this summer."